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All The Girls Chit Chat

Monday, July 5, 2010

Camping

For some people (not me), camping is a vacation... a home away from home, a chance to "rough it" and enjoy nature. But, for other people (me) camping is a yearly opportunity to gain a fresh appreciation for a comfy mattress, a/c, warm showers, large appliances, a toilet a few steps away from the bedroom, and a lot of other wonderful things in life.

Don't get me wrong, I love nature. But, I also really love my bed. I forgot my air mattress this year. Look carefully at the tent. Notice there are ROCKS under it? yeah. That's what I'm sayin'.

And, take this shot for example: notice I am cooking on a tiny campstove. The eggs & ham steak turned out fine, but the truth is I had to get someone else to start the stove for me in order to cook breakfast. I was afraid of starting a forest fire. (pay no attention to my feet. I had no idea my daughter was taking the picture. I would have at least taken the socks off first, if I had known. Maybe then you'd notice the sparkly flip flops instead of the socks.)



And another thing, my family seems to LIKE this trip every year, but every year I ask them "WHY do we keep doing this to ourselves???"
Well, I guess because we like tradition. We like s'mores (a lot). We like teaching our son to start a campfire all by himself. We like seeing our kids run into the lake. We like the stories around the campfire. We even kind of like the squirrels that chew their way into our peanut containers. We maybe even like that noisy woodpecker in the middle of the night. Maybe.
But, then again...I really do love my bed.

14 comments:

  1. Oh fun, and your hair looks way too nice for you to be camping! Ugh, I miss all of y'all. I have got to set aside a day soon for some heavy duty blog reading and emailing.

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  2. You are so brave to do this every year. I thank God everyday that my husband is not a camping kinda guy, then again if he was I would not be in this relationship, LOL!
    I do not consider camping fun in any sort of way, I love me electricity and bed and running water.
    NOPE NOT A NATURE GIRL.

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  3. Oh Becky, you done made me cry. I know that you must enjoy just a wee bit of camping and the time that it allows you to be with just your family. Otherwise, you would put your flip flop wearing foot down and say no.

    As a kid, we went camping every summer and the memories it gives me now are more special than any other from my childhood. You are doing the right thing, no matter how many rocks are stuck in your back in the morning, you are giving them solid gold memories.

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  4. Weird! I commented. Hmm, I wonder if they aren't showing up?

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  5. I do not mind camping, we kind of rough it when we visit my sister-in-laws cottage in Canada, bathing in the lake, sitting by the camp fire. I could eat hot dogs every day and not worry about cleaning the tent. BUT yes after a couple of days I do want to be HOME back in my own bed.

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  6. You haven't lived until you've been WINTER camping. What joy. (note my lack of enthusiasm)

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  7. Early in our marriage, my husband, an avid camper and outdoorsy, stick and flint fire starting kind of guy, decided he would show me what I'd missed as a non-camping kind of gal, and planned a "surprise" trip for us to Big Bend.

    We drove from Houston for 12 hours.

    A skunk chased our 4 month old puppy around a tree until my husband rescued her.

    A bear invaded the neighboring campsite's garbage and so, naturally, they shot at it (read the signs about Federal prosecution, much, HeeHaw?), in the direction of our campsite.

    We drove for 4 hours down a graded rock road to get to a "remote" campsite, from which we had to chase rattlesnakes in 110 F heat.

    At the same campsite, our tent was flattened by a windstorm and the temperature was 30 F by dawn.

    We had to take showers at pay stalls, at which the first two quarters were spent to get the water up to a bearable temperature, like maybe 50 F.

    I sprained my ankle on a hike (I was jumpy after the whole rattlesnake thing and thought a grasshopper was a giant rattler).

    And that was the first two days. I began drinking Lone Star from the can, I'm a rule follower like that (and because that's all the first store we came to had) and remember nothing of the next four. Almost nothing, except the very cold showers every morning and some event called Skirt Night at the Starlight in Terlingua. Oh yeah, and the bill for the gear, because I kept thinking to myself we could have gone on the Grand Tour of Europe on what we spent for a week in Purgatory.

    And we'll camp again this fall - because I love chili dogs, s'mores and watching my children run into the lake. And Lone Star.
    Lots and lots of Lone Star.

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  8. Ah but Deborah I have gone snow camping. Only once in Canada in that same cabin. NO heat except for a fire in the wood stove that had to be constantly fed to keep the fire going. My boyfriend, now husband, his brother and sister-in-law and another couple decided to take a snowmobile vacation. I really did not mind it. We dressed warm and it was an amazing experience to drive snowmobiles across lakes that were frozen. We were in the middle of nowhere. It was so peaceful and quiet, we saw moose and rolled down ice covered hills, half frozen waterfalls. If it were not a 5 hour drive I know we would not have gotten rid of the snowmobiles. For all the bad publicity, Buffalo really does not get enough snow to warrent having a snowmobile, most have 4 wheelers but our kids are too young yet.

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  9. you make canada seem like a frozen wasteland!!!:) hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa THAT is why I LIVE on the coast baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    oh I had one minute of thinking camping would be fun and then I thought of how much sleep I would not get in the tent on the ground with rocks scraping my back.

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  10. Alaina,

    You cheated. You stayed in a cabin.

    My memories of camping in the summer aren't much better. I remember being awake all night "in the rain." That morning I learned it wasn't rain drops hitting the tent. It was gypsy moths.

    Deborah

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  11. Campers here! We go to Lake George every year for 10 days. I absolutely love it! Can't get enough.

    Glad you had fun.:-)

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  12. I loved camping as a kid. Not so much as an adult. My husand can't do it though, with his CP he has a hard enough time walking on flat ground. So I don't have to worry about sleeping on rocks. Unless there's a hotel and flat parking lot, we're not going.

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  13. Yeah this cabin could definately be called cheating. When it was first built there was no running water or electric. They have since raised the original cabin and put a basement under it and it has a shower! The water is from the lake but they heat it up with propane tanks. Most of us do like to bath in the lake, more fun, but cold. The owner's daughter and husband were fixing it up to live in year round until husband passed. Too bad it is so far away or we all would visit more often.

    I DON'T DO TENTS!

    Have you ever gone to the same place as someone else and thought, that is not what I remember! Just ask a child vs. an adult about vacation. I would rather be with the child, they usually have more fun.

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  14. Oh, I loved reading allll these comments! I can NOT imagine camping in the winter!!!!!!!!
    To make matters worse this year-- we had the memory of the camper we borrowed last year while we slept in the tent this year. It spoiled us but the kids like the tent better. :)They said the camper was nice, but it wasn't really "camping" in their opinion.

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